Will Rogers Talks About Pigs, Politics and Movies (1933) 🇺🇸

Will claims, “I only know what I see in the papers.” And most people know Will only through his newspaper and radio ramblings, and his screen roles. But here is one of those rare Rogers interviews — with Will saying some rare things, which will help you to know him better!

by Edwin Schallert

Nowadays, writers simply don’t interview Will Rogers. It’s so much better to catch him unawares. He is an elusive critter, this famous American humorist — elusive particularly when it comes to talking for publication; but the wise-cracks fall right and left when there are no notebooks to capture his sage and wily sayings. So I left my pencil and paper at home — and found out what he has to say in private about politics, not to mention pigs, movies, and this business of acting.

I found him on the set of “State Fair.” He was comfortably stretched out on a bunk in a pigsty. Warily, he opened one eye and looked in my direction.

“H’lo; how are y’h,” he said, half-sleepily, shifting a newspaper that he had on his chest. “How’s everything?” There was a true rustic cordiality in his voice, and as I leaned over the enclosure of the sty, we talked. First, Rogers was prone; then, as conversation progressed, he sat up, and after a while he came over and leaned on his side of the wooden rail. Before he was through, a crowd had collected, as crowds always do when Will is talking. And though he started in to be very serious, the repartee and rejoinders were falling thick and fast as the audience increased.

Rogers may talk “straight” for a time (or try to, for he saves his wit for his public mostly), but sooner or later that humor, which can’t be repressed, is bound to come out, and the laughs are testimony that, on the stage or off, he is one of the funniest men in America, as well as one of the most penetrating of popular philosophers.

He’s a One-Man Show

In fact, Rogers is a great one-man show, any way you take him. His talents spread all over the place. He writes, he speaks (extemporaneously), he ropes (expertly), and he acts after his own fashion — yet there is never an end to the variety and the whimsy of his comments, whether they appear in print, are heard from the stage, with or without lariat action, or echo from the audible and so often garrulous screen.

The favorite Rogers theme, as everybody knows, is politics. But have you heard about his new interest in pigs? In “State Fair,” he has one for a “fellow-actor” — that’s the reason. It’s the prize hog, Blue Boy, a 900-pound tusk-flaunting porker from Iowa. Will is the one movie star in all Hollywood history who could dilate on such a topic — or even have the urge to do so. There’s real distinction for you!

Just try to keep Will off politics, whether the administration is Republican or Democratic! He will always have plenty to say about either. Folks are just waiting to see what he’ll come out with when the Democrats swing into full power in March, because he hasn’t had a whack at them when they were uppermost at any time since he has been writing his famous daily syndicated paragraphs. He has confined his jibes mostly to the Grand Old Party, and the rock-ribbed gentry of that alliance are sure that he has rank Bourbon leanings. “ It must be so “since he has taken so many and various whacks at Republican administrations, and kidded the late Cabin Coolidge (who, by the way, was one of his warmest friends) most diligently at times. That Rogers is a Democrat has more than once been the legend spread about the country.

What! He Has Never Voted?

As a matter of fact, a very close friend of Rogers, who is in a position to know, once informed me that Will had never been partisan at any time, himself. He has never even registered, let alone voted, according to this authority, though it’s hard to believe that. Momentarily, he feels that it’s a good thing that the Democrats have come into power, because change is good, but he’ll probably react just about as favorably if the Republicans return, say eight years hence (if not four) because that will mean change again. He has probably said pleasant things about the Democrats, or seemed to, because they were the downtrodden of late years, but he’s too whimsical, independent and free of mind to be tied down, and the day I talked to him he was especially sympathetic to Herbert Hoover.

“That poor fellow had to carry the whole burden alone,” he said. “He had to do nearly all the talking and most of the campaigning, and he was on the spot besides, as anybody is who has held the office of President, especially during such a bad time as he went through. The man he missed the most was probably Dwight W. Morrow, who was the big ace in the previous campaign. But he didn’t have the support in any way that he had the other time. He had to conduct a sort of lone fight, which, with the radio and all reaching everybody, is terrible difficult. Same voice, saying much the same thing, all the time. In the days of stump-speaking around the country, it was possible for one man to get away with it, but not now.

“The Democrats had the cast, and they also had the show. This politics is a show, you know; sometimes a ‘Follies’ show. But anyhow the Democrats brought on all those headliners and big guns like Owen D. Young, John J. Raskob, Al Smith and the others, and the Republicans didn’t have a chance. They did get the Republican Roosevelts into the fracas, but I don’t know whether that did any good or not. They went to a lot of trouble even about getting a hook-up with Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., in Honolulu. He did his talk from there, but if they’d waited until March he could have made it right from home and saved all the trouble and expense.

Supported His Namesake

Making a fuss about a name never did get nowhere. Why, down in Oklahoma there was a fellow named Rogers ran for office, and folks down there wanted me to oppose him. Heck, I didn’t oppose him; I encouraged him, and he won. He got the votes every place but his hometown. Maybe because they knew him too well there, I don’t know.

“Well — it’s a good thing the Democrats are in, because now the Republicans will have four years to fix up their party, heal up the wounds and all, and come through strong at the next election. They asked me for a wheeze in this picture, something for one farmer to whisper to another, and I thought maybe we might put in something like:

“’Did you hear’ — very confidentially — ‘as how they is going to resurrect the Republican party?’”

Despite all his success as a writer on politics, Will has occasionally found it a very sensitive subject. During the turbulent campaign days, he made some light remarks about it might be better for the candidates to go fishing, instead of taking the election so seriously, that roused a storm of protest among the more excitable of his readers. And if you think that Rogers took the denunciations lightly, you are very much mistaken.

He wrote a long letter to several newspapers explaining his viewpoint, and removing the sting from the words that some people attributed to them. He is a great sport in such matters, the essence of humanness. He told me, among other things, that he had taken several evenings off to answer a number of letters directed to him personally, and each received the most painstaking consideration and a lengthy reply. Few other writers would have been so thoughtful, but Rogers is as much devoted to his public as they are to him.

How He Tamed the Hog

Nevertheless, pigs are probably a lighter and gayer item on which to echo him than national problems. And pigs since “State Fair,” are one of his favored motifs for chats and kidding. He had to act most diligently with hogs during the filming of the picture, and they weren’t simply screen hogs, but the real variety. Blue Boy, selected after a long quest for just the right porkish gentleman for the big barnyard role in Phil Stong’s story, was the particular pal of Rogers. Will acted as caretaker for the prize boar, massaged and polished him. straightened the curl in his tail, tickled his ears, and did various other duties required by pastoral movie realism. But when he finally got through, all he had to say was: “A hog’s at his best when he’s on a plate between a couple of eggs.”

The first day he saw Blue Boy he was credited with this remark: “So you’re Blue Boy. You’re certainly some hog. When it comes to pork, there’s nothing like you, even back at Washington. Well,” he added ruminatively, “just a couple more hams for Hollywood.”

Blue Boy was very pugnacious at the start, but Rogers soon took that out of him. He showed his teeth to Will and snorted at him. Will hit him a gentle swat on the snout, and said “Aw, g’wan” and after that Blue Boy took to him considerably — more than to anybody else, anyway.

Once the hog refused to grunt for the microphone, and Will said: “Just about as talkative as a stock speculator before a Senate investigating committee, aren’t you?”

Another time, Blue Boy refused to move over to make room for a camera set-up, and Rogers said:

“Gone Hollywood! What a shame!” Then to the cameraman: “You’re probably lining up on the wrong side of his profile, so I’ll tell you what — I’ll switch over to that side, as it doesn’t make any difference to me, and after all it’s his pen.”

Never Reads the Scenarios

Rogers has no high-hattedness, and he . doesn’t take picture work too seriously as a career: “ Me and the hog nap along together,” he said, in describing how he was playing “State Fair,” and explained, “I’ll do anything they want, even to wrestling with the boar, but I never read the script. I didn’t read the book either when I learned we was going to make it. I never do, because I don’t want to be disappointed in the picture version. They always clean up the stories for the movies, and when they get through cleaning there’s generally nothing left except the same old plot.

“I ain’t seen half the members of this all-star cast, but I know, of course, as how they exist. We’re working shifts, and most of my shift has been acting with my ‘wife’ and Blue Boy. There are lots of famous stars in this picture though, and they have some real fine settings, including a big state fair.

“Back there in Iowa, you know, they take this state fair thing seriously. A hog means something there. They have a building two blocks long with hog pens in it, to show off the best stock. If they put on a fair back there, they brag because they have fifty fine prize hogs; out here in California they don’t bother about hogs, but drag out fifty movie stars. That’s the difference in state fairs back East and out West. Back there it’s hogs; out here it’s oranges and movie stars.”

The Rogers wit fails only in one place, so ‘tis said, and that is in his own home. He is reputed never to wisecrack around the hearth-side. I have heard from one well-informed source that the members of the family are a little critical, and preserve their perspective on everything he does, which is a great aid. It was really Mrs. Rogers that got Will to capitalize on his great gift of humor.

There was a time, you know, when he would drop into that funny vein freely and readily any moment, to the great delight of all who talked with him. There was a Rogers interview in every magazine every few months, furnishing entertainment with his sayings. At that time, he just talked, worked in the “Follies” with his roping and his repartee, and from time to time on the silent screen, where he was never the outstanding hit that he became in the talkies. He also wrote a few books, devised his “Illiterate Digest,” which was put on celluloid, and rather casually tried some other things. But he didn’t hit his real stride until he became a newspaper paragraphed probably one of the most widely read in this generation.

Rogers’ turn of mind entitles him to the title of the greatest living American humorist. He is easily the most brilliant since Mark Twain, but whereas much of Mark Twain’s fun was confined to personal reminiscence and light observation, and often had a sort of charming localized flavor, that of Rogers touches on all live questions of the day, and fascinates with the breadth of its horizon.

The very ones he jokes about take his often-sharp comments the most amusedly and graciously. They know Will may be having fun at their expense, but it’s in the cards that he should, because he’s a sort of national institution, and also a kind of national release for pent-up emotions and reactions. It’s really a compliment to be written about by their friend Will.

The only people who ever object to what he says are the humorless cranks and the Mountains-Out-Of-Molehills Society — and even they read him, listen to him on the radio, and go to see him on the screen. For there’s nobody like him. Even his critics admit that. And that makes it unanimous.

Will Rogers opines:

“Hoover had to conduct a sort of lone fight, which, with the radio reaching everybody, is terrible difficult. Same voice, saying much the same thing, all the time. In the days of stump-speaking around the country, it was possible for one man to get away with it, but not now.

“The Democrats had the cast, and they also had the show. This politics is a show, you know; sometimes a ‘Follies’ show.

“A hog’s at his best when he’s on a plate between a couple of eggs.

“Me and the hog nap along together. I’ll do anything they want, even to wrestling with the boar, but I never read the script or the book. I never do, because I don’t want to be disappointed in the picture.

“They always clean up stories for the movies, and when they get through cleaning, there’s generally nothing left except the same old plot.

“If they put on a fair back in Iowa, they brag because they have fifty prize hogs; out here in California they don’t bother about hogs, but drag out fifty movie stars.”

Source: Movie Classic Magazine, March 1933

In the interview across the page, Will claims he never did get to meet all the stars in the all-star “State Fair.” Believe it or not.

It’s certain that he met Janet, anyway — seein’ as how she plays his daughter (who’s also his pal) and goes to the Iowa fair with him when he exhibits his prize hog.

And it’s rumored Janet and Will are the most down-to-earth pair in the movies. You’ll see!

Source: Movie Classic Magazine, March 1933